Monthly Archives

Sometimes I think I should be reading something a bit more cheerful, but as Jay-Z says, you are who you are playa. So let me recommend two really good books I’ve read lately on violence, crime, and punishment.

Ted Conover’s Newjack is an award-winning account of his year spent as a prison guard at Sing Sing. I saw him tell a story from this book at a Moth reading a few months back and ran right out to the library to get it. Newjack is scary, sad, thought-provoking, and mesmerizing. You won’t look at this country’s penal system the same way again after reading this. Nor will you stop hoping that we can change it into something that doesn’t dehumanize everyone involved with it.

Conover’s book led me to James Gilligan’s Violence: Reflections on a National Epidemic. Where Newjack contemplates American brutality strictly at the personal level of inmates and their guards, Violence approaches the subject from multiple angles: psychological, sociological, historical, and mythical. Violence is sprawling and ambitious and sometimes redundant in presenting its thesis that shame creates violence, but there’s so much great stuff in here that it’s well worth the effort. As with Newjack, Violence deepened my understanding of the “inevitable” savagery of our species and – perhaps best of all -- makes a convincing case that we can do something about it.

Happy reading. After these two, you/I will have earned the right to reading nothing but Sassy and Super Chevy for a few weeks.

(Brooklyn-Queens Expressway, Brooklyn)

Title reference: The Church

(The Cathedral Church of St John the Divine, 1047 Amsterdam Av, Manhattan)

Title reference: R.E.M.

Flock to these related posts:
BP Bird
Birds Above
A Six, A Gull, A Statue

(Mulberry St & Mosco St, Manhattan)

Title reference: Neil Young.

(112 St & Adam Clayton Powell Jr Blvd, Manhattan)

...and we won't buy Camper Van Beethoven's beautiful but eccentric instrumental from the iTunes Music Store, either.

(Mott St & Mosco St, Manhattan)

(Sahadi's Importing Co., Atlantic Av, Brooklyn)

If you love great spaces and haven't yet been to the NYPL Rose Reading Room, stop reading this stupid blog right now and get your ass over there.

And Car Song by Madder Rose would be a great song to listen to while you're there. With headphones, of course.

Releated Post:
Lions in Winter

(NYPL Humanities & Social Sciences Library, 42 St & 5 Av)

In another life -- or maybe much later in this one -- I'm going to open a store just for the sake of being able to give it a cool name like this one.

(Terminal Tackle, Kings Park, NY)

I'm sure they're good to have around, but boy am I glad I don't have to use public pay phones anymore.

Title reference: Jon Brion.

More Canal St Station Posts (it may be smelly, but it's an inspirational kind of smelly):
Rodenticide
Gratitude
Red Coat

(Canal St Station)

As I grow older, I find myself more and more fond of sharing unsolicited advice. Today’s lesson is about accepting the fact that you can’t always win.

I know it takes a big man to admit he can't be a playa 100 percent of the time, but fortunately by admitting this, I am also reassuring myself that I am a big man.

Take my street name. It may be hard to believe, but "JP" wasn't my first choice. But this guy that owns a business in Flushing had already taken my first choice – and he was a lot bigger, smarter, and richer than I was.

So what could I do? Well, first I cried and cried, feeling sorry for myself and verbally abusing anyone that tried to console me. (That last part is what hydrologists and psychologists call “displacement.”)

But after about a week of this, I realized I had to move on, or at least get out of bed. And when I did, I found the strength within me to accept my situation and make the best of it.

I think you know the rest of the story.

(Main St & Roosevelt Av, Flushing)

We dropped off the film at ACV at 6:35pm, an hour and twenty-five minutes before the deadline. I hope I get some points for the nifty mailing label.

There are a few technical issues I wish we could have fixed before submission, but overall I think it's a very good little film and definitely something I'd enjoy watching even if I hadn't made it. Let's hope the judges like it too.

Whatever happens in the competition, though, I've had a great time and feel really lucky to have had such an amazing cast and crew. Thank you, Aaron, Debargo, Kavi, Daniel, Catherine, Christopher, Rich, and Cooper. And special thanks to TJ at Ace French Dry Cleaners. Bravo, kitty kats!

Now for some sleep…

Our shoot went well -- and went over. I was hoping to be done by midnight, but we didn't wrap until 2:30am. Rich the editor stopped by at the end of the shoot to get the tapes. I got to bed around 3:30am.

Rich started editing Sunday afternoon and I joined him after biking about 16 miles from my apartment to his place in eastern Queens. It was a good ride and I needed some fresh air, but probably not the best thing for me to do after a 22 hour day and barely five hours of sleep, especially with a PowerBook in my backpack. My neck and shoulders still hurt.

When I got to Rich’s, I was excited to see that the footage looked great and the performances were as strong as I remembered them. I knew that Kavi, Debargo, and Aaron would have great chemistry together and was thrilled to see proof of it on the screen.

Rich plowed through the shots, meticulously putting together a rough cut on his G5 while I created the end titles on my PowerBook, offered comments every now and then, and ate really good chicken and broccoli with fried rice. We argued about some editing choices and agreed on the other 99 percent.

I was in awe at the collection of DVDs and film-related books in Rich’s collection and started reading the shooting script to Magnolia while I ate. P.T. Anderson is one of my favorite writer/directors and I was hoping that I could cop some of his greatness for my project.

During the evening, Cooper and I spoke on the phone several times about music and sound effects, and around midnight Rich and I started to match the audio files he sent us to the footage. It was really coming together.

We locked picture around 3am and I got a QuickTime version of the short to take home with me. Rich and Cooper would work together on Monday trying to sweeten the audio track as much as possible before the submission deadline.

As I munched on a Korean marshmallow puff (in post-production, apparently, directors can mostly eat and sit around while other people do the real work), I felt lucky to be working with such talented people. If the film didn’t work, it would be entirely my fault as a writer/director, because the cast and crew did a great job.

I got a ride back to Brooklyn and was asleep by 4:30am.

(Rich's secret underground editing suite)

The theme of the Shootout is "AKA." After brainstorming with the cast and crew at last night's Launch Party, I went home and started writing, but fell asleep pretty early without having written anything.

I woke up at 5:30am and started writing and emailed the finished script to everyone at 11.

As of now, I'm a little bit behind on the shot list, but I've got the storyboards done. We start shooting at 7pm.

We now interrupt our regularly scheduled blog for the Second Annual 72 Hour Film Shootout.

Over the next three days, I'll be leading a team that will be competing against 50 or so others to write, shoot, and edit a six-minute film, based on a theme to be given tonight by the contest organizers. The final film is due Monday at 8pm.

I’m very happy to have assembled a great cast and crew. Team Beckoning Kitty Kats is:

JP Chan, writer/director/producer
Kavi Ladnier, actor
Debargo Sanyal, actor
Aaron Yoo, actor
Christopher Low, director of photography
Daniel Valdez, sound recordist
Rich Song, editor
Catherine Lee, assistant director
Cooper Madison, composer

Time permitting, I’ll blog with updates throughout the weekend so that Bklyn Blggng readers can join us in this fun but nerve-wracking adventure. Wish us luck!

(Den of the Beckoning Kitty Kats)

Title reference: The Replacements.

(Franklin St & Broadway, Manhattan)

I admit it: I'm a sucker for a well-done speech. And Apple/Pixar CEO Steve Jobs' Stanford University commencement speech (excerpts also available via video) is a great one.

Create your own RDF at Wikipedia.

(Brooklyn College, aka the Stanford of Flatbush)

Title reference: The B-52's.

(Car Wash, Flatbush Av near Lincoln Rd, Brooklyn)

I suspect that one of these mornings, this chain is gonna break, but I could be wrong.

(9 St & 2 Av, Manhattan)

As many New Yorkers know, the mnemonic for the Lower East River Bridges is, from south to north, BMW: Brooklyn, Manhattan, Williamsburg.

BTW, my very educated mother just sent us nine pickles, even though every good boy deserves fudge, IMHO.

(Manhattan Bridge, heading east)

The Peristyle, designed by McKim, Mead, and White.

(Prospect Park, near Parkside Av & Parade Pl, Brooklyn)

Does anyone else find these Western Union ads hilarious -- and vaguely creepy?

And damn, I finally managed to convince most of my non-Chinese friends that not all of us eat dogs. Now I have to explain our affinity for radioactive pastries.

Related post:
Chinatown

Title reference: Camper Van Beethoven

(Canal St & Baxter St, Manhattan)

If you've never visited Bowling Green, you're missing out on one of the real jewels of the city. New York City's oldest park is an oasis of calm in the Financial District and, for a few years now, has even offered free Wi-Fi. So come on down and get your nature on and your geek on in one place.

Related posts:
Step Up To The Customs House
And It Was All Yellow
Flight by A Woman
A Whiter Shade of Bowling Green 3
A Whiter Shade of Bowling Green 2
A Whiter Shade of Bowling Green
The Secret of My Success
A Stranger Downtown

Title reference: R.E.M.

(Bowling Green, Manhattan)

It's been an interesting week -- to say the least -- for NYC wonks and Mac geeks like myself.

First, the NYC wonks: the West Side Stadium was defeated, all but dooming New York's (and the United States') chances of winning the 2012 Olympics. I'm a fan of Mayor Bloomberg, West Side railyard development, and the Olympics in NYC, but I've always been ambivalent about the stadium. Still, I'm bummed that the plan was defeated. I see the Olympics as a way of getting New York to build things we should already have - more housing, more modern office space, subway extensions, more parks and recreation facilities for kids, etc.

But New York has a way of letting critical needs like this slide when there’s no deadline by which we have to address them. (Think of the Second Avenue Subway, now several decades late, or public school reform, which is being tackled now only because we have some courageous and politically unbeholden leadership on the issue.) Winning the 2012 Olympics would have been a way of imposing on ourselves a very firm deadline to get things done – and I have no doubt we would have met them. Now, I’m afraid it might be back to business as usual, which is to say a lot of debate, a lot of fighting, and no action.

On the brighter side, this means Bloomberg almost certainly wins re-election because his opponents have just lost their biggest issue against him. And maybe once the bad feelings have subsided, if they ever do, New York will rally and go for the 2016 Olympics – with a stadium in Queens.

Second, Mac geeks: Apple announced this week that they are switching to Intel chips beginning next year, after using IBM/Motorola PowerPC chips for the last decade or so. For people like myself that fetishize dual-G5s and 30” Cinema Displays, this was a big shock. (Normal people equivalent disruptive event: kind of like Paris leaving Paris for Jacko.)

What does this mean for the world? Macs will get better and cheaper and more popular in the long run. But in the short run, if you need a Mac right now, buy it. If you don’t need one until the end of this year or next, hold off and see what the newer models look like. Owners of current Macs won’t see much of a difference for quite a while.

Title reference: Natalie Imbruglia.

(19 St & 7 Av, Manhattan)

From Jean Dubuffet's Groupe de Quatre Arbres (Group of Four Trees), 1972.

Trees Lounge is a cool little film by the great Steve Buscemi.

(Chase Manhattan Plaza, Manhattan)

No animals were harmed to make this photograph, although at least one may have been annoyed.

(Marla)

(28 St-Park Av South Station, Manhattan)

Title reference courtesy The White Stripes.

(Mulberry St & Mosco St, Manhattan)

What are you looking forward to?
The moment when all my African violets are in full bloom....they are so pretty.

What song have you been listening to most lately?
"Louie, Louie" by Iggy Pop from the Coffee and Cigarettes soundtrack.

What do you believe with all your heart to be true, but can't prove?
That the most precious things in life are the ones you can't buy with money.

(Mei Lai Wah Coffee House, 64 Bayard St, Manhattan)

People often ask me why I chose to shoot this photoblog with the Treo 600, given its very limited camera.

My answer is always the same: because of the Mysterious Self-Portrait Function, man.

Title reference courtesy Weezer.

Related Post:
Self Portrait In:Of A Scion

(Q Train)

If you wanna get your wonk on, check out "People, Parking, and Cities," a great article from the University of California Transportation Center about the relationship of parking, density, and sprawl in Los Angeles. It's not the story you usually hear about LA and it's well worth the relatively quick and accessible read.

(Central Parking, 40 St & Lexington Av, Manhattan)